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Long Beak On Guinea Fowl

does anyone know if guinea fowls beaks can grow too long thus affecting feeding. one of ours looks mangy and has been dewormed, but its beak looks very long and curved – awfully difficult to catch her, any help would be much appreciated. buff

Hi Buff,
Thanks for this question and visiting farmingfriends. I haven’t seen a longer beak in a guinea fowl but I have done in quail. In Michael Roberts book entitled ‘Quail, Past And Present’ he says for quail that “because they are in unnatural surroundings the beak and toe nails can grow very long, but can be trimmed with nail clippers.” I don’t know whether this is the same for guinea fowl but it could be. Obviouslyguinea fowl are alot bigger than quail so catching them and trimming their beak will not be as easy.

You may want to catch your guinea fowl in a cat basket or similar box.You may also want to try to establish a relationship with the guineafowl before you decide to trim the beak so that the guinea fowl trustsyou and won’t struggle so much.

If feeding is difficult I would suggest giving the guinea fowl chopped lettuce, yoghurt, mashed up hard boiled eggs and mashed up layers pellets so that they are easier for the guinea fowl to digest. Hope this information is useful.
Let me know how you get on.
Sara @ farmingfriends

Thanks so much for replying and will try the food you suggest – we have a very, very large garden and at the moment have 3 adults, including the sick one, plus two babies – so they are very protective of each other and very fiesty with any intruders!! Relationship building may take a while although they do follow me and of course love looking in mirrors so may try and lure it into a more confined area that way. Will let you know how things proceed! Thanks again Buff.

If anyone has come across guinea fowl with a long beak then I would like to hear from you.